Apparently I live in someplace where introversion is a trait that is 'Bad'.

I live in a suburb of Chicago. You are expected to give a positive reaction to someone you don't know talking to you.

Well, I live in Dallas...

And maybe it's just my neighborhood, but people who talk to people they don't know are often considered creepy (It might have something to do with having had the highest crime rate for 10 years). It's like an unwritten rule. I mean, not if they ask for the time or directions or something, but if they try to strike up a conversation, it's seen as suspicious or creepy. Probably because a lot of the people here who do so actually are suspicious or creepy, but now people make that assumption... which makes it very hard to extend your social network.

Honestly, I'd say that expectation is a lot more fair to people who don't already have connections or acquaintances. It probably seems like a nuisance to someone who has all the connections to people that they need already, but imagine what it would be like if people were always freaked out by strangers, and you had NO easy way of forming connections with the people around you? It would be such that you were essentially limited to interacting with family, and people who were paid to interact with you.

Complaining about such an expectation seems rather short-sighted, honestly.

OK, if the 20th century was considered the "American Century" I would guess a quick look back through those decades would probably define the American character pretty well:

1900 - 1910: Populists like William Jennings Bryan and Progressives like Teddy Roosevelt advocate expanding government to keep a check on corporations (and especially railroad trusts).

1910 - 1920: More wins for progressives... Wilson becomes President, suffragists are gaining momentum (and eventually win in '20), the Constitution is amended to allow for an income tax, and we jump in and win WW1. Meanwhile, Shoeless Joe and seven of his teammates are banned from baseball for throwing the WS.

1920 - 1930: Hey, the flappers were cool and all, but this is what happens when "the business of America is business" as '20s President Calvin Coolidge said... it ends with a crash. Leopold and Loeb kill a kid for fun and Dayton TN fines John Scopes $100 for using A Civic Biology as a HS science text.

1930 - 1940: Happy Days are Here Again. A New Deal puts Americans back to work. Frank Capra's making movies about outsiders serving in the U.S. Senate and Americans get behind a little underdog horse named Seabiscuit.

1940 - 1950: "Rosie" is at the factory building airplanes, we beat Hitler and the bad guys, Harry gives 'em hell, and network TV is created. Meet the Press starts its run, Jackie Robinson plays for the Dodgers, veterans go to college thanks to the G.I. bill, and Mr. Potter is Capra's new on-screen villain defeated soundly by George Bailey, the "richest man in town."

1950 - 1960: Elvis does Ed Sullivan, Ike begins work on the Interstate system, McCarthy thinks we're all Reds, the Warren court says separate is inherently unequal, Rosa Parks won't give up her seat. McDonalds and Disneyland open their doors, Leave it to Beaver is on TV, James Dean's on the big screen, and school-children are hiding under desks to avoid being blown up in a nuclear war.

1960 - 1970: Camelot begins... and ends. LBJ starts a war on poverty. Bull Connor turns the dogs on kids in Birmingham, MLK has a dream, Civil Rights and Voting Rights are signed. We get caught in a jungle, college kids worry they'll get drafted and decide to start a "revolution." Hippies head to San Fran or party at Woodstock, King and Kennedy are killed 2 months apart, Richard Daley goes up against Abbie Hoffman, and Dick Nixon goes to the White House. Oh, and we become the first nation to put a man on the moon.

1970 - 1980: The Watergate needs better security. Americans lose faith in "government." Tricky Dick resigns. The Godfather's in the theater, Mary Tyler Moore's on TV, disco has its embarrassing chapter in our history, and SNL goes on the air. The man from Plains wears a sweater in the oval office, fails to get some hostages out of Iran, and turns over the keys to the WH to a guy who seems to share that Calvin Coolidge philosophy.

1990 - 2000: Seinfeld certainly speaks for a decade about "nothing." The Boomers get the keys to the WH, the nation debates important issues like "school uniforms" and V-chips for television. OJ's acquitted - the biggest piece of the decade long sensational crime obsession that also included the Menendez brothers, Lorena Bobbitt, Tonya Harding and Joey Buttafuco. Cal beats Gehrig's consecutive game streak (a better baseball story-line than the McGwire - Sosa race), the country takes sides on Starbucks: love it or hate it, and we end with a tie election in Florida.

So, here's what I don't get... if that was the "American Century," why does every stereotype about American Culture seem to come from the '70s on?
'70s: distrust of government. Check!
'80s: unfettered capitalism. Cowboys in charge. Check!
'90s: sensationalist culture. Check!

OK, we usually manage to hang onto baseball and rock-n-roll in the stereotype, but come on... are those the only positives we get to keep from our glory days?

Last edited by Ruthie; 10-09-2009 at 04:22 PM.
Reason: How could I leave out Rosa Parks?

The painters of America are landscape painters.
America is a land of peasants.

If the painters of America are landscape painters, who are the portrait painters, and what kind of people tend to be portrait painters?

Urban America does not extend beyond the mouth of Hudson River.

Rhineland is a garden of Eden.
Rhinish is a unique dialect in Germany.
The sound is melodic, clipped, soft spoken.
Outside of the Rhine, only in New York you hear the sound of the Rhine.

Eventually, Yiddish gave way to English in NYC.
The sound of Yiddish did not.

The town surrounds the garden.
Landscape surrounds the town.

Kartoffel > Garden Apfel.
Pomme de terre.

The potatoes and the apples were grown inside of the city walls.
Agriculture is an urban invention.

Landscape is wilderness.
Cultivation is not.

Ah. So you're saying that, excepting the cities in the east around New York, America mostly has a peasant/wilderness culture due to how it historically developed?

Originally Posted by Ruthie

OK, if the 20th century was considered the "American Century" I would guess a quick look back through those decades would probably define the American character pretty well:

...

So, here's what I don't get... if that was the "American Century," why does every stereotype about American Culture seem to come from the '70s on?
'70s: distrust of government. Check!
'80s: unfettered capitalism. Cowboys in charge. Check!
'90s: sensationalist culture. Check!

OK, we usually manage to hang onto baseball and rock-n-roll in the stereotype, but come on... are those the only positives we get to keep from our glory days?

You know, I do begin to think at times that the 20s through the 40s were actually the better decades in American history (in SOME ways, though not in all), because they represented fun (20s), overcoming hardship (30s), and pulling together to win a war (40s). We were more unified back then. Now, we can't seem to agree on anything anymore. Oh, well. Every nation has it's time in the sun. Perhaps our sun is setting already.